What has Obama done right?Follow

Sure the JSF has better stealth characteristics, and we do have a missile advantage, but the stealth on the JSF is not that much better than the Mig 35 coating they are employing. The mig 35 has a much higher thrust to weight ratio and can carry more missiles. It has a comperable jamming and targeting package to that found on the JSF. The external ordenance racks do give it a larger radar signature, but whatever you say about russians, their air to air missile technology has always been right up their with our own. Russia also has a theoretical at least awacs capability based on tupelov TU-95 bomber chassis. But the main point is that China definitly fields an awacs capable craft, they are building 7 nimitz sized carriers right now, and they have the production centers and design capability to improve upon the mig 35, which they already have the rights to. or to design their own 5th generation stealth craft.

I'm not sure where you are getting your numbers about our carrier air wings being under aircrafted. The navy just bought a ******** of super hornets to fill the gap left by the departing F-14. if anything they have a surplus at the moment.

There is a very good reason we don't sell our aircraft carriers and top line fighters to other countries: Iran and China both used to be significant allies of ours. Yet we are selling the JSF to other countries... That should tell you a huge amount about its reletive capabilities to the F-22

53% of the country voted for Obama. They knew his health care intentions

It's preposterously naive to think even half of the people who voted for Obama had any idea what his health care intentions were, or have any clue about the current process.

Sure. And it also wasn't 53% of the country, just 53% of the electorate. But assuming equal ratios of informed/ignorant people on both sides of the spectrum, you still end up with more people on the government health care side than not. Half of 53% is better than half of 47%.

Yes, as your article indicates, in 2015 there will be a gap if the aircraft aquisition rate is not increased. At the moment, as I previously indicated, all our carriers have full air wing complements.



I was wrong, it's 4 over the next 10 years, not 7. 5 if you count the rebuild of the varayag. which I do not. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/cv.htm




Yes, espectially turkey. The same political climate that existed in Iran prior to the revolution exists in Turkey. India isn't likely to attack us, but they are not exactly the most militarily stabile element on the planet. If I had to pick a "2 countries most likely to start shooting at eachother with nukes" winner, India and pakistan would the it.

THe F-22 is designed to replace the F-15. Most of the F-15's are older than I am. and the costs of maintaining an ageing airframe start to cascade the older they get. The F-35 is a medium to light aircraft, intended to replace the F-16. It cannot effectivly fill the role of the F-15. We have no effective replacement for the F-15 at the moment without the F-22. You could concievably adapt the super hornet to the roll if you created a variant that strips out the reinforced carrier life bits for added land based performance, but that would not be a cost effective solution.

The T-50, Russia's 5th generation counterpart to the F-22 is also for sale. it's not ready for prime time, but a large country could easily aquire the design.

The "lets not build walls because the indians are friendly and wont attack us in the near future" mentality is scarily naive. The U.S. does not have the largest manufacturing capability in the world any more. we don't have the largest steel production. We literally cannot turn out sufficient weaponry fast enough to rapidly equip a fighting force WW-II style anymore even if we wanted to.

People, this is the president we're talking about. We're not supposed to focus on what he's done right, only what he's done wrong!

I don't think Australia is going to go to war with you anytime soon, Kao.

Edit: Oh, also.



No.

Edited, Aug 23rd 2009 10:15am by zepoodle

From what very little I know about jet planes, aircraft carriers, and military technology in general, air superiority fighters like the F-22 and the F-35 aren't defensive weapons. Their specific job is to gain control of an enemy's airspace, like they did in Kosovo and during the Gulf War(s). In those cases, American air control virtually won the conflict by itself, basically by bombing the sh*t out of the helpless ground forces. They'd be stupidly useless in a defensive war on America's own soil.

I haven't studied the period, but to my knowledge America hasn't fought a war on American territory since the Civil War. And outside of that conflict, it hasn't had to fight for its existence as a state since the revolutionary war itself. Nevertheless, they did get around.

Edited, Aug 23rd 2009 2:42pm by zepoodle

Well, what if Superman is mind-controlled by Braniac's red kryptonite ray and threatens to vaporise the UN? You'll be damn glad someone had the foresight to pack a kryptonite ring then, wouldn't you? And you'll be damn glad it's in the hands of the guy dressed as a harmless flying mammal. Wait, what?

In all seriousness, I understand what you're insinuating. It's just incredibly naive to expect the American government - or any government - to only make military purchases necessary for defending home soil. No-one wants to fight on home soil. Ever. America preserves its position as world superpower by virtue of its capability to absolutely fuck up your sh*t, in your face and outside your house with giant motherfucking bombs should you give them cause to. You can safely say now "America doesn't need such cutting-edge offensive technology. No-one's going to attack us", but the reason no-one's going to attack you is precisely because you can ruin their sh*t so badly. And you can do that precisely because you have such cutting-edge offensive technology. I hate political buzzwords, but "force projection" is the word we're looking for here.

Really, I'd love a world where no-one invades other countries or buys ludicrously expensive and devastatingly powerful military technology for that specific purpose, but I'm honest enough to accept that it's probably going to happen and understand why.

Edited, Aug 23rd 2009 3:05pm by zepoodle

The War of 1812 could be, and indeed has been seen as a second war for independence. Perhaps a better description is that it was a war to solidify its standing and remind observers foreign and domestic that the former colonies wouldn't be running (or crawling) back to the British Empire. Still, if Britain had been willing and able to bring her full military might on us and achieved outright victory instead of the half-assed stalemate that we like to call a win, our sovereignty would have been at risk.

That need not be the reason no one will attack you. There are other reasons which do not rely on fear and violence which are ostensibly as effective.

Besides, we did get attacked, eight years ago. A large military with large violence wasn't stopping it. What might stop it? Depends on who you ask, but I haven't heard "more conventional military spending" offered as an answer, ever. The answers are either precision violence or wanton love, but never wanton violence.



Possibly the most fruitless and wasteful use of technology, money, and time in the entire world, which imperils our world to the current day due to how irresponsibly they were handled? Peachy.

Do I seriously think Turkey is going to turn on us anytime soon? Nah. But no one thought Iran was going to do so either. That's my entire point on that issue. We don't know. The USA has a long and glorious history of giving military technology to foreign countries and then managaing to irreperably **** them off. Hell, look at all of central and south america for example.

That's because we have that expensive sword. Japan attacked us because years of military cuts drivin by battleship treaties they themselves were not even following indicated to them that they could get away with it. The reason we didn't lose control of our entire pacific coastline, which would have been devistating economically, is because we got our carriers out safely via dumb luck.

Besides, if we get rid of our military, Canada will totally head south and **** up our **** for overcharging them on everything for so long.